Skelia

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We’re a small publishing company that exclusively distributes print and visual media created by a public figure. As a contracted project manager, I oversee the company’s ongoing website and mobile app development.

What challenge were you trying to address with Skelia?

The development company that we originally hired to build our mobile app were making careless mistakes on the backend, so we needed to find a reliable developer to fix their errors.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Skelia initiated the process by scanning for problems on the backend. Within a few days, they discovered issues that our other web vendor overlooked for five months. After completing the analysis, they began developing an API to support one of the mobile app’s new features. Two of their .Net developers developed the infrastructure, while another developer scripted the container system to enhance scalability. A junior developer worked on the APIs frontend data integration.  

What is the team composition?

They assigned two alternating project managers and four developers.

How did you come to work with Skelia?

Our business manager was familiar with their owner, so we interviewed them to see if they would be a good fit. Impressed by their transparent business model and technical acuity, we decided to bring them on board.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent about $40,000 to build the API.

What is the status of this engagement?

They started working with us in 2018. The API is complete, but we’re in negotiations for an ongoing contract with Skelia.

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

While the API that they implemented on the app isn’t the most complex feature, it is the most reliable. Their work is easily scalable, their code is well-documented, and their repositories are clean.

How did Skelia perform from a project management standpoint?

We only gave them a small amount of time to build the API, so they leveraged their external resources to expand their team. When one project manager was absent, the alternate was able to step in without disrupting the workflow. In addition to holding weekly meetings, they produced deliverables every two weeks to meet the final deadline.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Skelia is comprised of an incredible team of architects, but their greatest strength lies in their transparent business model. They understand the importance of a harmonious business relationship. Their philosophies aligned perfectly with our business goals.

Are there any areas they could improve?

There was an issue with conflicting invoices, but they We had a problem with conflicting invoices, but they cleared it up quickly. The project was too small to notice any other difficulties.

This review was updated by the client on Month DAY, YEAR. The original star ratings were: Overall - 4, Quality - 4, Schedule - 5 Cost - 4, NPS - 5. New content is below:

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

TimelessToday LLC provides a video subscription service. I am the I.T. Manager

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Skelia?

To replace very badly written software.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Firstly to replace existing payment system, then add features such as Apple in-app purchase, Chromecast, Google in-app purchase and finally rewrite the application from the ground up.

What is the team dynamic?

The I.T. team in TimelessToday works directly with the Skelia developers (3) to specify, test, and deploy application features

How did you come to work with Skelia?

Recommendation from the TimelessToday CEO

How much have you invested with them?

$220k

What is the status of this engagement?

Current

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

How did your relationship with the vendor evolve?

From an initial contract with one Skelia developer to do remedial work, the project expanded to 3 developers. 

How did Skelia address the challenges that arose?

Skelia spent time with the original development company to understand the applications and architecture. From there they worked with the TimelessToday team to analyze and resolve issues.

Describe the impact this engagement has had on your business.

The software is more stable, outcomes more predictable. 

How was project management handled?

TimelessToday I.T. team were the project managers.

Is there anything that the vendor did well or that you would consider a strength?

Clear thinking and innovative solutions to problems. Also they were not put off by the  bad quality of the original code. They addressed the issues head on.

In what specific areas can they improve?

Better documentation.

What advice do you have for clients with similar needs to yours?

1.    Make sure you have someone  on your team with deep technical knowledge
2.    Work as closely as possible with the developers so that misunderstandings can be avoided early.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the director of marketing and product management for ETwater, a cloud-based irrigation system. It takes environmental data from multiple sources and adjusts landscape watering schedules based on weather changes.

What challenge were you trying to address with Skelia?

Our legacy system was reaching maturity, and we needed a partner to help us reengineer our core technology to incorporate advances in programming.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Skelia did a complete architectural overhaul of our system, using Java. They transitioned us from a standard architecture to a microservices architecture. They enhanced our scheduling engine and improved our algorithm; our platform can now change both the frequency and duration of watering based on changes in the weather. The new platform is in beta, and Skelia manages maintenance and updates.

What is the team composition?

They provide a project manager, four backend developers, and two engineers for the frontend and UI.

How did you come to work with Skelia?

We found them through LinkedIn.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent over $1 million.

What is the status of this engagement?

We partnered in October 2014, and the work is ongoing.

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

Two of our major enterprise accounts have transitioned their water management to our new platform and are excited for the enhanced functionality and cost savings.

How did Skelia perform from a project management standpoint?

We have weekly meetings with the project manager and have direct access to their engineering staff. We frequently Skype, too.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’re extremely educated, comparable to Silicon Valley engineering and experience. They’re much better than the past companies we’ve worked with.

Are there any areas they could improve?

The should have more post-release availability and be more proactive in fixing bugs once the product goes live.

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

Thoroughly explain your business and programming goals so that they understand what your product will be used for.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Delaware is an international company, providing everything from strategy to 24/7 support. We’re primarily SAP and Microsoft vendors, and we provide customer experience solutions, from CRM and marketing applications to B2B and B2C e-commerce applications. I’m responsible for the SAP customer engagement and commerce solution.

What challenge were you trying to address with Skelia?

We’re looking for a company that could provide us with nearshore resources, and we needed the ability to train those resources. They had to be the same quality level as local ones. Skelia also offered testing for customers, with a dedicated testing team and a lab, which we didn’t have at all, which was another interesting aspect.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We’re using them on two main aspects: Hybris SAP e-commerce development and pure Java development. For the Hybris part, their resources were added as an extension to our development team. We handle the project management, while they take care of the implementation, as part of the bigger team.

What is the team composition?

We have two developers for one customer, and five for another. We’re working closely with a couple of other people from their team, one of whom is a liaison who coordinates the entire administration. She enters our tasks into the timesheets and facilitates interviews with new candidates. We’ve also been in contact with their HR manager for the yearly reviews of our resources.

How did you come to work with Skelia?

When I met Patrik (CEO, Skelia), he was already in contact with one of our partners. We had a meeting and started our first project.

We’re located in Belgium, and they’re primarily in Poland and Ukraine, with only a one-hour difference. It’s easy to work with them and they have cheaper resources, which was an important requirement for us.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent $400,000 so far.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Skelia in April 2017, and it’s an ongoing engagement.

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

One of our top five customers is working with two people from Skelia, who’ve provided us with really good quality. They got in-line with our procedures quickly, and they were able to immediately add value to the project.

For our second customer, we started out with two developers as well. The customer told us that those two people were providing the same amount of work as 10 others from elsewhere. We’ve increased the team for that customer to five people as our clients are very satisfied with the quality of the work.

How did Skelia perform from a project management standpoint?

The communication between the teams is very positive. They adapted to our own communications standards, they’re proactive, and they’re quick to provide responses to our questions.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The thing that really amazed me is the speed with which they find new resources. In one case, we only had one or two days to provide a new resource to a customer, and they were able to deliver extremely fast. I haven’t seen that with another company yet. They also have a very qualitative profile, which isn’t easy in this market.

Are there any areas they could improve?

More transparency on their salaries would be an improvement. We discuss this at the beginning of contracts, but they could make a better overview of all the people working for us. That would take care of some of the administration, and it would help other clients.

Something else they could do is every three months or so, provide us some sample résumés from the market to see if we’d be interested in them.

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

No.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the engineering program director for Showpad, a sales enablement tool that’s typically a SaaS solution.

What challenge were you trying to address with Skelia?

Our company needed QA testing services. It is hard to find the right talent here in Belgium or even in the US and Poland, where we also have sites.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Skelia deploys QA engineers for manual and automated testing. They originally started only as manual testers, but over time, their services expanded. We wanted our engineers to focus on operations, not testing.

What is the team composition?

Generally, we work with around ten people, but that depends on the workload. Since there a team of remote employees, we work directly with the engineers because there is no management overhead.

How did you come to work with Skelia?

When I started at Showpad, Skelia was already on board as a partner.

How much have you invested in them?

In total, we’ve spent between $50,000–$199,999. We agreed to review the currency rate between Euros and dollars yearly, and based on that, the rate is modified based on the current currency we have. There’s a daily fee per QA engineer, depending on skill and experience.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our engagement with Skelia began in July 2011.

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

We work with Skelia because they provide great QA profile candidates and engineers we can’t find in the local market. The selection of those candidates is made in a similar way we do internally. Our team is involved in that discussion and integrate them as if they’re remote employees of Showpad. They’ve become valuable team members to us. The QA testers have their own dedicated email address and have access to all the systems that all of our engineers have, which is highly appreciated by them.

How did Skelia perform from a project management standpoint?

Skelia’s team is part of our daily stand up meetings. I can’t remember any performance issues with any of the candidates. The team at Skelia is proactive in asking for feedback, visiting every six to nine months for a performance review. They also check to see what our needs are to help us all better align. If there’s a need for extra people, we try to give as much insight as possible so that they can find the right candidates on time.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The main motivation of working with Skelia wasn’t the cost, but having the right people on board to do the projects we wanted. After several years, they’ve proven that they deliver quality work in the context that we use them.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They ask me that question every six months, and to be honest, we’ve been satisfied with their services. The fact that I can’t come up with anything is significant.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO of Find.me, a digital platform that aggregates all available data about a specific product then provides recommendations to users based on their profiles. Personal frustration drove me to start this company. I would input my information and preferences on multiple websites and platforms, and I wasn’t always happy with the results. Find.me streamlines the registration process and provides a complete overview of all of the products the market offers.

What challenge were you trying to address with Skelia?

We needed a vendor to help us develop the digital platform.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We started with a trial phase, where Skelia put together several mockups. They recommended which technology we should use to program the platform. Based on those initial plans, the team designed the interface and started building out the solution. They used a combination of Elasticsearch, Microsoft Azure, MongoDB, and Python.

The basic platform is complete, and we’re currently working on the virtual assist. The feature is available, but we’re fleshing out its performance.

What is the team composition?

They provided four developers to augment our internal team of a PHP senior developer, a full-stack developer for the backend, and a data engineer.

How did you come to work with Skelia?

I’m not a developer myself; my background is in marketing and economics. To get a better idea of the e-commerce and IT space, I spoke with an advisory board. We considered a variety of possibilities, even looking at the options offered by the Belgian Chamber of Commerce in the US. Because most vendors in Belgium focus on AI and big data, the prices are rather high. So, I started looking for nearshore development companies that offered a wide range of skills.

I put together a shortlist and met with the senior management of each candidate. We assessed my expectations and the short-term and long-term goals of the project. The selected vendor would also have to collaborate with our team’s PhD developer and data scientist located in Belgium, as well as our Ukraine team and CTO in Panama. With all of those factors in mind, Skelia was the best choice.

How much have you invested with them?

So far, we’ve spent €173,000 ($196,709 USD) on this project.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Skelia in May 2017, and the project is ongoing.

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

We’re a startup, so we had some cash flow challenges at the beginning of the project. Skelia was flexible regarding invoicing and payments, which helped us get our business up and running. Currently, the platform supports only the automotive industry, and we’re working to expand across more verticals like the real estate and job markets.

So far, we haven’t run into a single bug. Their work has been extremely high-quality. Our CTO enjoys working with them, and we’ve received only positive feedback on the basic platform. We’ve interacted with notable brands in the automotive industry to get their products in our system, and their representatives also praise the platform.

How did Skelia perform from a project management standpoint?

We started with two-week sprints. We had weekly standups, which we soon changed to biweekly. To avoid micromanaging them, we provide user storyboards, and they handle the design and development process. They work remotely from Ukraine, but it feels like they’re sitting in the same room as us. If there are any scheduling conflicts, they’ll let us know right away.

We communicate with several members of their team, but there is a point person who handles the management of our account. The representative provides feedback on meetings, information about their processes, and plans for the future. It’s not always very detailed. Over a few weeks, they replaced the original account manager, but nothing changed.

With that said, meeting with them is always very productive. Their team is well-prepared with presentations of their most recent work. We go over business insights, marketing updates, and sales information every six weeks. It keeps everyone on the same page. Overall, we can tell they’re committed to our project. They’ve even worked overtime to make sure they complete a specific task.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I like to know the team that I’m working with, and it’s crucial that they have a very collaborative attitude. We have one-on-one meetings with their staff, and it’s always enjoyable. It’s clear that the Skelia team likes working with their colleagues, which sets the foundations for strong communication. They’re a good fit for this project, not only in terms of skill but also culture.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, there isn’t. The combination of the tools that they’re using is working perfectly. They’re a well-organized company, even providing their staff with team-building days.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the R&D director for Indian product development at Televic. We manufacture care communication systems.

What challenge were you trying to address with Skelia?

We needed to build a server for our new platform.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Skelia developed a server for our new platform, helping to create the solution from scratch. We worked together to design the server architecture.

We have a complete .NET backend that generates workflows and produces the alarms for our products. All of our devices come together in the server architecture.

What is the team composition?

We work with eight people from Skelia including a team lead, QA teammates, a UI designer, and developers.

How did you come to work with Skelia?

One of Skelia's owners contacted our company to have a discussion about a potential partnership. Then, they joined the project.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent around €2 million euros (approximately $2.2 million USD) on their services.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with the most recent team around July 2015, and our contract’s ongoing.

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement? 

We’re satisfied with their work. They’re a highly effective team.

How did Skelia perform from a project management standpoint?

We mostly track their activities in Jira and Confluence where we're able to see how much time they spend on different tasks. They’re open communicators and share their thoughts about potential issues with us. It makes collaboration much easier.

Skelia has a professional approach across the board. When someone a team member left, it was easy for them to find another one to fill the gap. They have a highly competent HR team that makes sure we have all of the necessary resources.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Usually, there’s a gap between outsourced teams and internal teams. We don’t have that with Skelia, which is unique. They’re well integrated, so we work together as one team.

Communication is crucial to an outsourced partnership. Skelia’s communication is fluid, making our discussions easier and more efficient. We don’t have misunderstandings.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They currently focus on .NET, but they may have to broaden their scope.  It could be interesting for them to join embedded software development in addition to .NET projects.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

They’re a good partner.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm tech manager for two teams at NLTG (Nordic Leisure Travel Group - former Thomas Cook Northern Europe) in the Travel Industry. Both teams are focused on developing and maintaining systems to support yielding and handling prices.

For what projects/services did your company hire Skelia?

Quickly scale up teams. We have several project that are of high priority that we want to develop and this was one solution to manage that.

What were your goals for this project?

Development of a system for yielding flights and hotels. The system allows the business to adjust prices and also automatically adjust flight prices depending on different rules.

How did you select this vendor?

Our owner in UK had already worked with Skelia for several years and the connection had already been made. We needed to scale up and suggestions was to involve Skelia in that part.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

Develop system for yielding prices for hotel and flights. The solution was developed in AngularJS, C#, SQL and RabbitMQ.

What was the team composition?

Three senior full stack developer and one QA. The Skelia team was also responsible for the scrum master role in that team. The team worked tightly together with business analyst and application architect from our employees at NLTG.

Can you share any information that demonstrates the impact that this project has had on your business?

The Skelia team has been part of our team since December 2016 and delivered one big project and some minor projects. Deliveries has been on time and the quality has been good.

They adapted to our ways of working without any problem and has also through the years given us suggestions of improvements. It's been a two way communication which we appreciate. Skelia takes good care of our relationship.

Besides the usual contact there's a yearly performance review together with each member. When we needed new members in the team during the years due to parental leave or when a member was changing to another of our Skelia teams the recruitment of new members went very smooth. Good pre check of skills and we never had to turn any of the suggested candidates down.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

Self-going but asks questions when in need. Working agile and are quick to adopt changes. We communicated via email, teams/skype, Azure Devops, daily stand ups on teams/skype and weekly planning on teams/skype.

We also visited Skelia in Ukraine as well as Skelia visited us. All communication was in English and we have had no problems in our communication.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

They are very professional and are always interested in understanding the problem that we are solving. Asks good questions to understand the small and big picture. Also making suggestions of improvements or alternative solutions.

Are there any areas for improvement?

No, there’s nothing that I can think of.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the CTO of an HR consulting company, providing candidate assessments, but mainly focusing on providing insights on the application process itself to employees and employers.

For what projects/services did your company hire Skelia, and what were your goals?

We needed a completely new platform to be built, including a web application for our backoffice and reporting to companies, and a web application and mobile app for job applicants and employees to provide their feedback. This platform needed to be built flexible and expandable, since the business itself was new and not 100% defined yet.

How did you select Skelia and what were the deciding factors?

I had some good experience with Skelia previously in my career, and we were not happy with the local development companies that we were working on for this project. So we compared a few local companies with Skelia, and they provided us with the best value-for-money offer.

Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and technologies used.

The initial design (data model) was done by us, and from there on, the Skelia team did the complete development in different stages:

All was developed on Azure,

using Azure SQL database, .Net c# backend and React frontend.

First stage:

1. development of backoffice webapp;
2. API and frontend

Second stage:

1. Mobile app development;
2. API and Xamarin for the mobile

Third stage: Web app, using API developed for mobile with React frontend.

We then went into maintenance for a number of months, and entered a new stage for an additional web application in React. So in total, 3 web applications were built, supporting our backoffice, our business customers, and job applicants.

How many people from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

7 people in total. We started with a team of 4 developers, including 1 team lead/leade developer. That included frontend, mobile and backend developers. We then ramped down to 2 people, full stack + mobile, followed by a maintenance phase where we had 1 full stack developer. Then ramped up again to 2 full stack developers for a next phase in the project.

Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the deliverables?

Since the initial launch of the platform, we have been able to accommodate for all our customer's request regarding the collection of applicants feedback, without the need for any additional development.

We now have a fully configurable solution in place, which allowed us to quickly ramp up a new service offering, adding a B2C solution to our existing B2B offering.

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timelines.

Depending on the phase of the project, we had weekly or daily stand-ups for project follow-up. Additionally, a (bi-)weekly planning meeting with supervising staff to make sure proper resources were available. Very clear and direct lines of communication, either directly via Skype/Zoom/Meet/Teams or via project documentation platform used by Skelia (documentation and timesheet follow-up)

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

Flexibility is definitely a strong point. We asked for a lot of changes during the course of this project, both in functionality and in capacity, and they went out of their way to deliver for us. Their development team is highly motivated and was always available, even after we had ramped the team down to go into maintenance mode.

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

Nothing comes to mind. They are not the cheapest, but deliver very good value for money.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the VP of software for a software management company. We have roughly 12 employees, which includes a mix of development, engineering, and sales resources. 

What challenge were you trying to address with Skelia?

We needed more development resources to make applications more scalable. 

What was the scope of their involvement?

They handle recruiting and manage everything related to employment. We relied on them to source the developers upfront, and they’ve delivered five developers to us.
The development done is for web apps, using a React framework.

What is the team composition?

They delivered five developers to our team.

How did you come to work with Skelia?

They approached us, and we were impressed with them. They had other clients in Scandinavia, and we felt the risks were minimal in working with them.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent about $20,000 each month with them on average. So far, we’ve spent more than $700,000 overall.

What is the status of this engagement?

We began working together around January 2019, and it’s an ongoing engagement.

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement? 

The developers are doing well. They’re integrated into our organization and treated as our own employees.

How did Skelia perform from a project management standpoint?

They perform excellently regarding hiring, invoicing, and follow-up. We have planned meetings; they are always prepared and on time. They use our internal project management tools.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’ve been great at recruiting candidates and doing follow up. They deliver everything we need.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, I don’t have anything.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be extremely clear about the specific type of resource you want for the best chance of getting the right candidates.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CTO and co-founder of a company that builds translation software for larger organizations.

What challenge were you trying to address with Skelia?

We hired them to join our development team.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Skelia works on different tasks. Their involvement has evolved over time. For example, they’ve worked on custom development requests from our clients and bug fixes. For the past two months, they’ve been working on a web-based translation interface. The team is doing frontend development.

What is the team composition?

We work with four teammates including two developers and two QA specialists.

How did you come to work with Skelia?

Somebody in Luxembourg, where we are based, recommended Skelia. We did interviews with the two developers on their team and we were impressed.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent between $160,000–$215,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We began working with Skelia about one year ago. Our contract will be terminated at the end of April 2020.

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement? 

We’ve been extremely satisfied with their work, both that of the developers and the QA teammates. They are one of the best teams our company has worked with. They provide test-driven development, proper documentation, consistent creation of uni-testing, and consistent refactoring of code when required. 

The team is also able to produce high-quality code. We are a small company and Skelia is used to working with big corporations. So, they actually helped us to improve the overall quality of our operations. We learned a lot from them.

How did Skelia perform from a project management standpoint?

We assigned them tasks every 2–4 weeks. What was special about Skelia’s team is that they are extremely professional. They understood how to work with deadlines in mind. The team had very strong communication skills, so we had no problem integrating them with our customer success team. They did a good job of informing us of anything that prevented them from coming to work.

What did you find most impressive about them?

We’ve worked with other development companies and it was quite difficult. However, with Skelia, the process was very smooth even though they are an outsourced company. They were really part of our team and were honest.

Are there any areas they could improve?

At one point in time, we wanted to consolidate our teams, moving from four to three companies. We also wanted to scale up at Skelia. When it came to hiring new people with Skelia, we did some interviews. 

However, some of the candidates we met didn’t meet the requirements we had provided in advance. The pre-screening of candidates could’ve been improved, which I talked to them about. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Getting in contact with Skelia, in my experience, will guarantee your success. Their management was very professional and flexible. The team was also very open to discussion and transparency when it came to cost. Their business and pricing models were very good.